Chimera's dynamic character creation is a series of linear prompts which helps you to generate realized, world-integrated, and complex characters. Character creation starts with where you came from, The people who made you who you are today, and all of your accumulated strengths and talents.
To be clear, this article outlines each section as briefly as possible and provide links to relevant information, but specific information will instead be linked to. If you are more visually included, please instead visit the
Visual Walkthrough. All the information presented here is there, organized to fit the viewable character sheet. With that out of the way, let's get into it!
Origin Story
Under each of the Bond sections (Guardian, Friend, Mentor, and Enemy) further helps determine your character’s backstory and answers questions like: where were you born, what are you like, who can you most easily talk to, and what is your deepest desire.
Below you an find each section. It does not matter the order you go in, only that all are completed.
Guardian
A guardian not only determines who raised you, but also your birthplace--here meaning both where you were born and where you were raised. The latter determines what races you can choose from.
To dive first into where you come from and what you are, click below:
Friend
A friend is someone who fundamentally either agreed with or supported you in your ideals. Once you determine your character's own archetype, this also helps to determine their goals and fears.
To dive first into where you come from and what you are, click below:
Mentor
A mentor trained your character or taught them something about the world outside your character. This opportunity giving them their profession, and social standing.
To dive first into where you come from and what you are, click below:
Enemy
An enemy is an entity that tried to show or tell you what you couldn't do and made your life generally harder. Your character's enemy determines where your character is compulsive and corruptible.
To dive first into where you come from and what you are, click below:
Bonds
Bonds are the relationships that helped your character become who they are. There are four types of bonds: Guardian, Mentor, Confidant, and Enemy. Each of these types of bonds are defined by a particular kind of relationship, seen below.
Relationships:
- Unknowable Force
- Stranger
- Community
- Surrogate
- Rival
- Object
- Lover
- Self
- Deceased
- Deity
|
Friend
Professor
Loyalties
Priest
Parent
Building
Knowledge
Animal
Land
Sibling
|
Narratively, bonds and it's coinciding relationship are a collaborative effort between the GM and the PC. While it is up to the PC to create the backstory of how their bonds affected their character, it is up to the GM to incorporate the bonds during game play.
each of these four bond types and its given relationship to the character flesh out the character itself. For example, Guardian bond also determines the birthplace of a character--where they were raised--which determines what race (and sometimes subrace) the character is.
Traits from Relationships
Your relationships can range from ordinary to outlandish. Each of these relationships gives a character personality traits (hereon referred to simply as "traits"). While you receive traits based on what you pick, the significance of the relationship can come into the gameplay itself. Ex: If your mentor is the Land where you were born, and it is being destroyed, what would your character do? The answer to that question creates meaningful roleplay, which is half of the fun of Chimera. Additionally, not all traits are good or will be good all the time. A Heavy-Sleeper might be able to rest in a loud area and avoid exhaustion, but a heavy sleeper will not notice an assassin without outside help.
Attributes
Chimera uses a score system in order to quantify how good a character might be at a given task. This system in its entirety is called an
attribute. Attributes determine your character's ability to do anything in the game in a way that involves the most rules (and dice rolling!). In parts, it involves four key things:
scores,
skills,
saves, and
stats.
When beginning character creation, all of your character's attributes start at
zero. By completing your origin story, your character recieved particular score and save bonuses. Lastly, Stats give characters mechanical benefits that are directly tied to the character's Score.
Calculating Modifiers:
Your character has four
Attributes - Body, Mind, Spirit, and Heart. Each of these determine what your character is good at. For example, if they have good reflexes, they have a save bonus to Body. Or, if they are a social butterfly, they have skills in Heart. And maybe, if they are particularly energetic and good with a weapon, they have a high score bonus in Mind.
Your choices in your
Origin Story determined what your save, score, and skill proficiencies were. From what is left, we need to determine our Modifier ("Mod" on the character sheet) and Stats (the italic titles below each attribute).
After this is determined, you needs to determine the corresponding score's modifier. A modifier is a number value that is half the value of the score, rounded up, and must have a minimum value of 1. To illustrate, Scores go in a range from 0 - 9; A modifier increases on every odd number: (0 = 1, 1 = 1, 2 = 1, 3 = 2 ... 9 = 5). Modifiers are used to determine a couple of mechanical features within Chimera, as noted in the in greater detail in the Attribute article linked below.
| SCORE
| 0 |
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8 |
9 |
| MODIFIER |
1 |
1 |
1 |
2 |
2 |
3 |
3 |
4 |
4 |
5 |
Calculating Ability, Energy, Resolve, and Health:
When you have determined your modifier, you can go stat by stat, using your score to determine your current maximum
health,
energy,
resolve, and
abilities.
To find your stat maximum:
view the individual stat webpage - linked above
consult your attribute's score.
view the table to match the score to the stat's corresponding number.
To learn more about the rules (such as how modifiers affect rolling, what Stats are mechanically), you can find out the in depth rules here:
Equipment
Your character is an adventurer in the whichever Age your table chooses. For your character, their home away from home is what they can carry or what they can craft. As such, it is rare to find one without any equipment.
To calculate what items you have to your name, follow these rules:
- Each character may choose to take a number of items equal to their personal equipment slots (which is 10), as defined in Equipment. This cannot be added onto, even with abilities such as backpacker
- If a character chooses a weapon and/or armor, which is highly recommended, these are taken at Rank 1.
- When choosing a general item (not from the Vehicle & Mount category) the player is limited to choosing items with a Crafting Rank of 1-3. Items without a crafting recipe can be chosen as well.
- If a character chooses a container as one of their items, the player is still limited to their base 10 slots.
- Additionally, a character cannot take anything from the Vehicle & Mount category as no size there is listed.
To view the items, click the link:
Equipment
Abilities
Abilities are unique actions that your character can take, either in specific scenarios or generally speaking; the ability will specify which case it falls into, and if it is open to interpretation, the GM is allowed to dictate when the ability can be used.
There are a couple of abilities you get for free during character creation. You get three free racial abilities from your choice in the
overview of races, as well as as many free abilities
equal to your current abilities stat maximum. Click the link to learn more.
At Level 0, a character begins with a number of
Magical ,
Melee and Ranged , and
Utility abilities equal to the player character's ability stat. A player must then choose what abilities they have equipped at each given start of the game day.
Finished!
And with that, you have completed your character sheet for a Level 0 character. Congratulations! And with that, you have completed your character sheet for a Level 0 character. Congratulations! Not quite sure you got it right? Check out the
Visual Character Sheet Walkthrough . It will supplement what you have learned and done here and is a good way to check your work.
Please put your feedback down in the comments below; I am always happy to answer questions (when I can get to them) and help out where I can. Thank you!
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